


shift

by pvwork



Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Athletes, Gen, Swearing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-08-21
Updated: 2014-08-21
Packaged: 2018-02-14 04:31:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,716
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2178003
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pvwork/pseuds/pvwork
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Nekoma Volleyball Club has 4 third years: Sawamura Daichi, Kuroo Tetsurou, Yaku Morisuke, and Kai Nobuyuki.</p>
            </blockquote>





	shift

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [hearts like ours](https://archiveofourown.org/works/3288956) by [karples](https://archiveofourown.org/users/karples/pseuds/karples). 



**1\. Aquarius**  
“Where are you planning on going?”

“Come spring, I’ll be heading to Nekoma.”

“Really?” Ikejiri looks surprised. Sawamura shrugs modestly. The collar of his uniform is crooked, and Ikejiri reaches out a hand to brush at it as they stop to look out the window and take in the campus that has been their home away from home for the past three years.

In these three years, Sawamura has made two best friends, learned how to cook, and found he had a knack for physics. Sawamura smiles and fixes his collar. “Where else? They have a great volleyball club.” He’s also discovered his total and utter dedication to volleyball.

Ikejiri waves his hand in front of him like he could dispel any misunderstandings simply by shooing them away. “That’s great! But isn’t it kind of--far? Tokyo?”

“I’ll have a dorm on campus, so I won’t have to commute,” Sawamura explains to the window. His expression grows sly as he turns back to face Ikejiri. “Toudai is in reach!”

Ikejiri laughs, the sound bubbling out of him like a happy brook gurgling. It’s hard to be anxious about the future with Sawamura pulling on his arm and shouting, “Race you to the lunch line!” It doesn’t feel like they’re growing up when their feet are sprinting down the same steps they always have, teachers sticking out their heads to sigh exasperatedly in their wake and the same four berating them for running in the first place.

 

+  
Kuroo and the rest of the first years are on the bench. It’s just a practice match, but Kuroo can feel his heart beating jackrabbit-fast in his chest as he watches his senpai on the court take to the air, high jumps and higher hands, blocking so beautifully it threatens to take his breath away.

This is what being in love must feel like.

The _whump-pa_ of the surface of the volleyball bouncing off flesh and bone, the squeak of shoe soles grinding against the waxy surface of the court, shouts and calls, those are the only sounds that can be heard when Nekoma is in command of the ball because they _connect_ in a way the other team can’t quite seem to manage.

Everything looks so easy, but it’s like Kuroo has suddenly developed x-ray vision. He looks past the ease of motion and feels the desperate hours spent training for these few fragile minutes on the court. The third years are always the first to arrive and the last to leave. They warm up early and rush out of the club room late, run extra laps and head home to revise deep into the night.

Kuroo looks down the line of other benched players. Yaku grins at a service ace as his hands turn the cap of a water bottle idly. Kai sits still as a rock, but his eyes are following the ball with intent. It’s Sawamura who catches Kuroo’s eye. His blunt, tan fingers grip the edge of his seat and a faint smile catches at the corner of his lips. He looks like how Kuroo feels: in love with every bit of the game.

This will be a good year, Kuroo thinks to himself and turns his focus back to the court.

 

+  
Yaku has bruises in places bruises shouldn’t be. The ones on his forearms don’t hurt so much if he doesn’t press them, but learning how to fall isn’t easy: his elbows scream when he tries to move them a certain way; his knees nearly give out when he stumbles into the dining hall for dinner.

Summer training camp is more brutal than he could have ever imagined. On top of the unforgiving schedule, he’s training to fight in a position that he doesn’t actually want. Liberos are important, but Yaku is guilty of entertaining fantasies wherein he hits a growth spurt and becomes a wing spiker overnight.

He doesn’t feel like eating now. He decides he’d rather stew in silence and stare sullenly at his bowl of rice. He’s one small, forgettable boy in a room filled to the brim with energetic, rowdy boys bursting with excitement.

“Did you hear about what happened in the west wing bathroom?” Kuroo asks as he takes a seat on Yaku’s left.

“It’s downright scandalous,” Sawamura says as he sits on Yaku’s right.

“What happened?” Yaku asks. He doesn’t actually want to know, but Kuroo is looking at him so expectantly that he doesn’t want to leave him hanging. He’ll only hound Yaku even more if he’s ignored.

Kuroo nods like he’s been waiting on the edge of his seat for a chance to tell the story, and begins to regale Yaku with a horror story plucked straight out of a plumber’s worst nightmare.

Yaku chews absentmindedly, drawn in by the truly horrendous twists and turns the story is taking as he eats. Food falls into the reach of his chopsticks him without him noticing, and it would be such a shame if he let each bite go to waste since he’s already picked up a tidy morsel of food. Sawamura is smoothly integrating important details about tile grout removal methods and wind speed into Kuroo’s story and Yaku finds himself saying, “Your imagination is terrifying”, with his mouth full when Kuroo finally pauses to take a drink of water.

“No, you,” Kuroo says. His cheerful facade is undiminished. “Keep chewing and we’ll end this with a happy ending, alright?”

Scowling, Yaku directs his annoyed gaze first to his left and then to his right. “What is this, story time?”

“It’s whatever you want it to be,” Sawamura says soothingly.

“That’s bullshit.”

Sawamura reacts by raising his hands and opening up his palms to show he’s weaponless.

“Yes, tell that to the flying pieces of ghostly shit the west wing is plagued with.”

“Kuroo, I’m _eating_ here,” Yaku tries to emphasize.

“Why, yes, you are!” Kuroo says, fingers fluttering around his mouth like demented moths.

Sawamura nods seriously, puts his empty hands away, and stands. “Then I guess we should leave.”

“Who died and made you captain, Sawamura?” Kuroo challenges half-heartedly. He’s not actually upset with Sawamura because if he was, he’d be pitching a fit instead of falling into step with him as they leave Yaku to finish his dinner.

Yaku looks down and realizes that he’s demolished two bowls of rice already. Most of the dishes in front of him have also been cleared away by the combined efforts of the other boys at the table and, most surprisingly, himself.

 

+  
When practice ends, a windstorm full of sweaty gear and smack talk sweeps through the boys volleyball club room.

Kai wretches open the busted door to his locker and laments at the mess that greets him. He’s been meaning to clean it for a month now, but something always happens and he never gets around to it. At the very least, his trainers aren’t muddy, but nothing can negate the fact that his locker is the younger cousin of a respectable dumpster.

Kai roots around for a clean pair of socks and his school bag.

“Do you ever tone it down?” a voice behind him shouts.

Sawamura’s deep booming laugh becomes apparent over the rush of noise. Everyone is in a hurry to change and rush home through what dim autumn light is left outside.

“Why should I?” Sawamura asks.

Kai’s favorite part about being in the volleyball club isn’t actually playing volleyball, although it is incredibly fun and rewarding, don’t go slandering his dedication to the cause or anything. He thinks that bonding with the team post-practice is his favorite part about being in a team, that’s all honestly.

It’s only after metal has been heated that a blacksmith can begin his work, and it’s only after practice that the bonds of a team can truly be forged, Kai thinks.

“Don’t listen to that guy,” Kai says as he faces his locker. Sawamura laughs again and slaps him on the back. Kai nearly falls face first into a pile of sweaty shirts, but manages to catch himself. He shoves a foot through the second leg of his pants. “You were great today, especially in that last scrimmage.”

“Thanks!”

Sawamura looks happy as Kai threads his belt through his pants and buckles up. Kai grins and slips on his shoes. “But I was better.”

“Was not!”

“Was totally so,” Kai tells Sawamura, who’s smiling devilishly and balling up something that smells downright foul.

Sawamura launches it at Kai, who ducks but realizes too late that he wasn’t the intended target. The wad of used whatever disintegrates upon impact, insides littering his locker and stinking it up even more.

“Nothing but net!” Sawamura crows.

Kai grimaces, but gamely holds up his hands like a referee. “Touchdown!”

 

 **2\. Camellia**  
There’s half a bowl’s worth of bloated gummy worms wedged between Michimiya and Sawamura, a source for sticky fingers and muffled giggles.

“I’m so full I don’t think I can move,” Ikejiri whispers. His face is looking a little peaky, but it could be the pale light of the tv that’s lending him an unhealthy glow.

Michimiya doesn’t reply, only shoves her hand into the bowl of popcorn balanced precariously on Sawamura’s stomach and grabs another handful. On screen, a girl steps out of a well, her face obscured by dark hair. The hem of her dirty dress brushes her even dirtier ankles.

“I think I might be too full to even try to run,” Ikejiri continues. He’s slurring and Michimiya mentally adds baiju-soaked sour gummies to her list of culinary can-do’s. Definitely worth all the effort she went through to sneak a bottle out of her house.

“Good,” Michimiya says as she crunches her way through a mouthful of butter and popped corn kernels. “More time for me and Daichi to escape.”

The tv lets out a blood curdling shriek and Ikejiri jumps sluggishly. “Don’t really want to,” Sawamura murmurs drowsily.

“What.”

“Feels like it’s been a waste, attending Nekoma, when our volleyball club is in the state it is.”

“That’s not a very good reason not to run when the dark things of the night come for your soul.”

Sawamura shrugs and Ikejiri and Michimiya both feel the way his shoulders move, broader than they were before, sleek muscle sliding under layers of skin and clothes.

“Feels like a good reason,” Sawamura says.

“It’s okay to be disappointed,” Michimiya says softly. The promise of a good sports program had lured her to Karasuno, but now she sits through class unhappily and looks to afternoon practice with dread. Buyer’s regret. It’s okay to be disappointed, she tells herself, because feeling that way occasionally doesn’t negate all the good things that have happened to her at Karasuno, like meeting Shimizu or practicing with the other girls.

There are people Michimiya is eternally grateful she’s met, but there will always be a small part of her that wonders, if she had gone to different high school, how much better would things be in comparison.

“Aren’t you supposed to say something encouraging now?”

Michimiya shrugs, “No, not really. You know what’s going on best.”

Ikejiri leans his head onto Sawamura’s shoulder and adds tipsily, “You’ll always have us.”

“You’ll always have me too,” Sawamura says.

He closes his eyes, feeling almost uncomfortably warm but unwilling to move. This sleepy suburban sprawl they live in in Miyagi prefecture is home, and sometimes it’s stifling, but having Michimiya and Ikejiri around alleviates some of the pressure that weighs on him to try and carve a place for himself in the world. They’ve made a space just for him between the two of them, like they’ve done now, and every movie night before.

 

+  
On a grassy slope tilting precariously into a grimy lake, Kozume and Kuroo watch the sunset. It’s like Kuroo never left, and Kozume has always been here, by his side, silent and watchful.

Kuroo tries for encouraging first. “They’ll graduate soon, just stick it out a little longer.” It’s a small white lie, no bigger than a sea snail. It’s spring, and and they won’t graduate until next spring, but that’s not an important detail right now when Kozume is thinking to quit volleyball club.

Kozume stays silent. He pokes at something in the grass and then draws his finger away quickly.

Kuroo tries comforting next. “You’re a great asset to the team. The upperclassman are just too proud to realize that you give really good advice.”

“Why are you still on the team,” Kozume mutters. It’s not a question.

“I like playing volleyball.”

“That’s not what I meant.”

Kuroo shrugs and tucks his hands into his pockets. He watches grass bow under the pressure of a gentle breeze, waving in the open air like tiny stalks of seaweed swaying along with the ocean currents.

“I don’t want to give up, because it seems like there’s something better waiting for us on the other side of this hurdle.”

“Go on.”

Kozume’s fingers twitch, like he’s wishing he hadn’t put his phone and his gameboy into his backpack for safe keeping on the walk home. He twists out a clump of grass and then quickly shoves it back into the ground, patting the earth around it nervously and then grinning up at Kuroo shyly. It’s like he never left.

“You like the rest of the team, don’t you?”

“Sure.”

“That’s a pretty good reason to stay, don’t you think, Kenma?”

Kozume blinks up at Kuroo guilelessly, his grin becoming bolder as the sun sets further. “But this is about you, _Tetsu_.”

If it were anyone else, Kuroo would have laughed in order to cover up his surprise. People think his laugh is unnerving, menacing even. With Kozume, Kuroo only shrugs and kicks at the grass billowing around them. He misses anything important, foot swinging through air and willowy strands of green reaching for the sky, but it’s fine, he wasn’t kicking to connect.

 

+  
Yaku stretches for the ball, the burst of pain as his side hits the ground has nothing on the relief he feels as he watches the ball arc into the air once again.

He barely has the time to pick himself off of the ground before Sawamura is calling for the ball, running up to get right under it, the arc mangled and uneven and Yaku will be disappointed in himself later, but for now he holds his breath.

Yamamoto had been running up to try and bump the ball towards Kozume, but Sawamura had gotten there first. To be frank, Yaku is glad that it was Sawamura who was receiving this time. Yamamoto is eager to play, eager to please, happy to spend time with the rest of the club and likeable, but at a time like this, a finer touch is needed. Yaku and Sawamura have been on a team together that one extra year, and it shows in the way Sawamura carefully gets the ball to Kenma.

It’s 20-22 and in their loose congratulatory huddle that lasts just a second, Kuroo’s hand is on Yaku’s neck, his other arm settled loosely around Sawamura’s shoulder as their third year captain congratulates someone else on a job well done. The third year wing spiker who scored the point is practically glowing with the few syllables of praise awarded to him, as many as their brief huddle allowed.

Kuroo seems to feel Yaku’s irritation because he taps his fingers against Yaku’s shoulder as they pass each other to get back into position. He’s saying, be patient, that was a great save and we all know it, sorry about the wait, won’t be long now.

 

+  
“Hey, first year, hurry up and pick up those balls! I’d like to get home sooner rather than later!”

Sawamura rolls his eyes and Kai laughs quietly as they scurry alongside Kozume to clean up the gym after practice. Yaku is scowling fiercely at the ground, the furrows in his brow carved deep.

“Says the guy who’s sitting on the bleachers doing nothing.”

“Don’t be mad, think of this as conditioning,” Kai says easily.

Kozume, a ways up ahead, doesn’t say anything but he makes a disbelieving noise high in his nose and Kai grins, thinking, me too as the boy in the bleachers feigns a yawn.

Kuroo comes bursting out of the equipment room, feet skimming the ground as he races towards them, the flaming chariot of a ball cart in front of him coming to a skidding halt in front of Yaku, who straightens, a volleyball in each arm, expression lightening up into something expectant.

“Put them all in here, boys, we have to pick up the pace. Start throwing balls everywhere!” Kuroo calls out as he runs across the gym to pick up a stray tucked into a corner. He reaches it in record time and throws the ball behind him without looking, like he’s aiming to land a trick shot. Instead of landing nicely in the cart, it zooms through the air all the way into the bleachers, knocking the head of a third year.

“What the fuck! What the fuck was that?”

“Volleyballs are a pretty common thing this time of day,” Sawamura says as he catches the ball after the bounceback and neatly drops it into the red cart.

Kozume nods solemnly. “What was wonderful serve, Kuroo-senpai. Please, teach me some time.”

Kai had been flash freezing his anger until now, cooling it in a giant, hollow cavity in his chest for safe keeping. There’d been liquid nitrogen swimming through his arteries as he tried to suppress the feeling of utter contempt for his upperclassmen. His anger is a glacier, steady and slow, icy and patient, and Kai knows that he can wait out these next few weeks. Graduation is just around the corner.

 

 **3\. Mars**  
“What do you think you’re doing with our first year?” Tanaka Ryuunosuke, number five, shouts.

“What are you doing with _our_ first year, huh?” Yamamoto shouts back, just as loudly.

They glare at each other menacingly, a dark aura drawing in tight around the two of them as they bare their teeth at each other and growl, actually growl, like they’re tigers facing off and not high school athletes.

“I’m so sorry,” Sugawara Koushi, Karasuno’s number one, and Yaku blurt out at the same time. They look at each other with mirrored expressions of shock and amusement.

“Let’s have a good game,” Kuroo says, holding out his hand to Sugawara to shake.

Inuoka running to catch up with the ridiculously fast number ten, Hinata Shouyou, was the most obvious out and out battle of the game. Two boys willing to run and glad to do it, chasing each other across the court, the ball flying between them as the net seems to grow higher and higher is something Sawamura won’t soon forget.

“Good game,” Sugawara says as he comes over to shake hands with them again, this time shaking Sawamura’s hand first and then Kuroo’s.

“Many good games,” Kuroo says, smile so wide that Sawamura has to elbow him in the side. Tone it down.

“You’re team has two amazing setters,” Sawamura tells him, smile wide, only bright enough to charm, not to blind.

Sugawara laughs and rubs the back of his neck sheepishly. “We’ve all worked hard. Our ace does a lot for us, but every little bit is important.”

Sawamura and Kuroo both nod understandingly and the conversation turns to drills, practices, and the promise to meet a nationals again.

At one point, Sawamura let’s Kuroo do most of the talking as he sweeps his gaze across the gym. It’s the orange and black uniforms that his eyes catch on. In another time and place, Sawamura might have been wearing the same colors, but he looks down and twists his fingers into the hem of his Nekoma jersey, red and white. His fingertips pale as circulation slows down to a trickle, a crawl.

Regret is slowly evaporating morning dew, disappearing from his mind as he looks to Kuroo, hands animatedly tracing the arc of a volleyball through the air, and takes in the sight of Kai and Yaku trying to help Karasuno’s ace detangle himself from the pile of volleyball players that have wrapped themselves around him--a wing spiker on each leg, a libero on his back. This has been good too. There’s Nekoma colors dotting the gym, and when Sawamura looks again, they stand out this time because they are his colors too.

 

+  
Kuroo lets loose a chuckle and bites his lip to try and stop a full blown smile from blooming as he reads the text on his phone. His types a quick reply and thumbs a button to turn his screen to black just as Sawamura asks, “A special someone?”

Grinning toothily, Kuroo smirks, “Wouldn’t you like to know.”

“Right, sorry, that’s none of my business.”

“What if I wanted it to be your business?”

Sawamura leans over the armrest that’s created a neat divide between them. His face is very close and his eyebrows are raised in a clearly questioning manner. “I‘m not a business major.” His tone is playful, but his eyes are serious. He wants Kuroo to explain himself, this one time, but Kuroo shrugs and shakes his blank-screened phone in his hand, neatly sidestepping the question at hand and jumping back four squares to step one.

“An old friend.”

Sawamura turns away. His face is no longer openly curious. He settles deeper into his seat and closes his eyes to feign disinterest. The cat that didn’t catch the canary. “Didn’t know you had any friends outside of the volleyball club.”

It’s a low blow, but Kuroo doesn’t mind because he hasn’t been kind about where he’s aiming either. Tension is running thick and fast in the air, has been for the past few days. The bus ride to their next tournament is blanketed in a prickly silence that causes people to fidget in their seats while they try to catch some z’s and making conversations snappy and strained. This is the last of something, and it’s adding an extra shot of nerves to the usual pre-game jitters.

“He’s on the baseball team,” Kuroo says.

“Really.”

It’s a good thing we’re on a moving vehicle and there’s no escape, Kuroo thinks. Short of changing seats with someone and potentially upsetting a first year, who have such fragile constitutions, Sawamura is stuck with Kuroo until they reach their destination in approximately half an hour.

“Did you know he was personally invited to Seijou by none other than Oikawa Tooru himself?”

“I didn’t.”

“It wasn’t official or anything, but that’s pretty exciting right? What offers did you get other than Nekoma?”

“Karasuno.”

“Our eternal rival!” Kuroo says. “Do you wish you had gone there?”

Making Sawamura lose his cool before a match was never the intended purpose of this particular round of rock ‘em sock ‘em questions, but Kuroo sees Sawamura grimace and begins to honestly worry that he’s pushed him too far.

“No, I don’t. Not anymore, anyway.”

Low blow.

“I’m glad that I met you and Kai and Yaku and everyone on the team. I wouldn’t be the person I am now without everyone here. It’s been fun, it really has.”

Me too, Kuroo wants to say, I’m glad I met you too. What comes out of his mouth instead is: “We can still have fun! We’ve got this spring tournament to go through and then we’re going to nationals.”

Sawamura doesn’t turn back to face Kuroo, but he let’s Kuroo see his small, pleased smile, the one that makes dimples appear in his cheeks. “Of course,” Sawamura says.

Later, he’ll claim that his brain to mouth filter dissolved in the face of Sawamura’s sunny smile, but right now, Kuroo finds himself adding, “You look best in red.” just as the bus takes a sharp turn and throws him into Sawamura. The armrest between them digs viciously into Kuroo’s side as gravity and inertia and the laws of physics conspire to bring Sawamura’s face much too close to his own.

 

+  
There are a lot of other things that Yaku could be doing instead of waking up at an ungodly hour and dragging his sorry ass to the main gym. He pushes open the wide double doors as his jaw nearly cracks in half from a huge yawn.

“I could be studying for entrance exams,” Yaku mutters.

“I could be too,” Kuroo says without heat as the rest of Nekoma troops in.

Sawamura rounds off their group with a basket full of water bottles the size of small saplings in his left hand. He’s prodding the first years into the gym, a shepherd with baby sheep, and nods his head in silent agreement.

They set up the nets, drag out the ball cart, stretch and do the usual warm ups, and then separate into a familiar formation. Lev looks like he just might cry as he gets rotated up to a position to receive the ball. The player next to him is in a position to spike it across the net. There are two players waiting opposite him for the ball to come to their side.

“I’m so not ready for this!” Lev cries as the ball comes flying towards him. Kai yawns mightily when he tries to say something encouraging from across the net, words coming out smooshed and garbled.

Yaku is next up after Lev rotates out. Maybe he’s getting old and sentimental. Maybe it’s because it’s so early in the morning he would rather throw up instead of move, he feels so lethargic and unenthused, but he finds it in himself to be irritated at Lev, who should be young and happy to be able to play for another two years while Yaku steps into college and wonders if his feet will ever grace the courts again. He’s good. But is he good enough?

“You can do it,” Yaku says, voice carrying across the court from the back. Lev actually manages to connect with the ball this time. He sends it soaring high into the air, but it doesn’t fly very far, so Sawamura has to scramble forward quickly in order to hit the ball towards Kozume on the other side of the net. It’s good enough. It’s early yet.

It’s summer and time is as sticky as their hands after they fall upon the table full of watermelon the managers set out for them after afternoon practice.

“That was good. You’ve got time to improve,” Yaku says and high-fives Lev as he jogs by.

 

+  
Kai doesn’t mean to spend the time he should be previewing for next year playing 8-bit shooter games, launching pixelated carrot into the sky, his thumb cramping from pressing frantically at his keyboard. Things just turned out this way. School starts in the late fall, and while some colleges have already started, like Yaku’s and Sawamura’s, Kai has another week to wait out.

“Do you like it?” Sawamura says.

He’s open in a tiny window at the corner of Kai’s screen as he presses left and then right and then space over and over.

“It’s good,” Kai mutters.

“It’s lagging on me,” Kuroo whines.

“Just like volleyball, I know, yes, point to where you want to shoot, great,” Kai mutters absently as he shoots again.

“Aim better!” Yaku shouts as something squeaks happily on his end. Yaku doesn’t have any pets, so it must be from the game. The small bunny Kai is tossing carrots to squeaks when he passes onto the next level, where a deluge of bunnies rain down from the sky and run towards Kai’s tiny figure as he tries to launch more carrots at the sudden hoard hopping adorably towards him.

“Don’t you have to go to school or something?” Kuroo asks.

“Mental health day,” Yaku shoots back.

Sawamura sounds amused and concerned all at once when he asks, “Can you afford one?”

“I can afford to not help you out on this assignment of yours is what I can afford to do.” Yaku, for various reasons that are not at all mysterious and unclear to Kai, does not exit out of video chat or stop playing the bunny game.

**Author's Note:**

> sorry sports anime has taken over my life


End file.
